Southwest, AirTran rank highest in customer experience according to Temkin Group

Southwest Airlines and AirTran deliver the best customer experience in the airline industry, according to the 2017 Temkin Experience Ratings, an annual customer experience ranking of companies based on a survey of 10,000 US consumers, the ratings group said.

Southwest Airlines took the top spot out of the 10 airlines included in this year´s ratings, earning a score of 73% and coming in 90th place overall out of 331 companies across 20 industries. Southwest has earned the highest score every year since the Ratings began in 2011, with the exception of 2015 with JetBlue came in first.

AirTran Airways came in second with a score of 70%, followed by Virgin America and JetBlue, both with 69%, Alaska (68%), United (66%), US Airways (65%), American and Delta (62%) and Spirit Airlines (50%).

In these ratings, a score of 70% or above is considered “good,” and a score of 80% or above is considered “excellent,” while a score below 60% is considered “poor.”

To generate these ratings, Temkin Group asked 10,000 US consumers to evaluate their recent experiences with a company across three dimensions: success (can you do what you want to do?), effort (how easy is it to work with the company?), and emotion (how do you feel about the interactions?). Temkin Group then averaged these three scores to produce each company´s Temkin Experience Rating.

The ratings for all airlines increased between 2016 and 2017. US Airways improved the most, gaining 17 points, while Delta Airlines improved the least, gaining only three points.